This past week the United Methodist Church got some good press… the Tea Party Nation’s Judson Phillips demanded its closure.

The Huffington Post reports that Phillips demanded the closure of the United Methodist Church after he toured the United Methodist Building in Washington, DC. There he saw a sign in support of the DREAM Act and declared the United Methodist Church “pro-illegal immigration” and the  “religious arm of socialism”. The DREAM Act is a piece of legislation that failed passage in the Congress this past month. Its passage would have provided a means of citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as minors. Now hundreds of thousands of children and adults, who have spent most of their lives here in the United States, continue to live with the anxiety of a non-legal status. Constantly wondering if they will have to return to a country they barely know, and if they will have to learn a language they most likely do not speak. Tough luck, right? It’s not our problem, right? They broke  the law, right?

As many of us in the Christian family sit in candle-lit services tonight, stuff ourselves with turkey, ham or roast and marvel over the cleverness of  “A Social Network Christmas” may I suggest we read over another achievement put out by the United Methodist Church called Strangers Among Us.

Strangers Among Us: An Advent Devotional calls us to remember how the Holy Family walked this earth as refugees.  As they followed the Roman decree — as they fled across the border to escape Herod’s law of the land–even up to the day he testified to Pilate, “My Kingdom is not of this world,” they walked as strangers among us. If God invaded our world once unawares, God could do it again.  Today.  Anywhere.  Among any people.  Anytime. If so — how would God want us to treat the least of these strangers among us?  In our nation of immigrants, the issue of immigration has become a hot topic.  This study is an invitation to ask how God would view our concerns.  As we read the word together in this holy season, let us ask:  What would God do with the strangers among us?  What would God do with strangers and sojourners — like us?

The reflections in the devotional were written by The Reverend Larry Jent, Co-Chair of the Virginia United Methodist Conference Commission on Ethnic Minority Concerns and Advocacy.  Larry is a person of Cherokee and Sac & Fox heritage. The devotional is recommended by the Virginia Conference Immigration Work Group as a means of reflection during a Christian season where our focus is on the greatest gift ever received—God’s son, Jesus.  It calls us to remember the birth of the Christ Child while calling to mind the similar situations of so many wandering without a “home” and seeking a place of acceptance and safety in our country today.

Let us take a moment from all our festivities to share in the anxiety of the strangers among us…. for this is what God felt fit to do through the act of incarnation. I’m glad Judson Phillips wants to shut my church down; for even in all its imperfections there is hope that the United Methodist Church can be a place of welcome to those who have no where else to turn.